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Tuesday, 9 March 2010

More thoughts on "short term mission"

8 March 2010

When I was thinking of phoning my friend ___, I was also thinking again about the “mission trip” I’ve been invited on… and wondering if I should ask her about her mission trip to Guatemala, how long it was for, how long she (having experienced mission trips) feels a “mission” should be in order to be effective, and so on… and then, right after saying our “hello’s,” before I said anything else at all, her first sentence was, “When I went to Guatemala….”

And then, well, all my concerns about this trip poured out… and I even tried to put a positive spin on it by saying how some of the mission leader’s trips for 2 weeks or maybe even a month (though actually I don’t know of any that have been for more than a week or so…. Oh dear, was I lying to try to make it sound okay… or at least to not sound like I was being critical of the leader or the trips, or like I was fishing for my friend to agree with “my viewpoint”?? Maybe I’ve been “walking on eggshells” so much in another area of my life recently, that it’s spreading… like a virus… and tact is becoming dishonesty…)….

Anyway, before I could say another word, she broke in and said, “Even a month isn’t long enough!” And she said her Guatemala trip was 3 months… and then she said, “But you are already “on mission” right there in your community, doing the street ministry!” And yes, Father, I do believe that is what You have called me to, at least for right now.

(And I don’t want to go “in debt” unless You are really in it – and if You are, You will provide, won’t You? That’s what I told the mission leader: I will only go if You put all the provisions in place by the time of the trip…) (And I do want to put my resources into this “mission” right here and now, where You have so clearly placed me!). (And I do not feel that this “foreign mission” I’ve been invited on, as it stands just now, is not what I have been “called to”) (And, for me at least, You are not – yet, anyway – providing the “needed resources” … which isn’t to say it isn’t meant to be for someone else…) (And my health also doesn’t seem to be up to it right now…) (And I have a lot of necessary family-related traveling come up very soon…)